Band
and Orchestra music has a long and rich tradition, and learning to play
an instrument is a truly rewarding way to experience music. Studies
also continually show an increased level of achievement on standardized
testing for students who learn to play an instrument, and that the
longer the student plays the instrument, the higher the achievement will
be.

Data
show that high earnings are not just associated with people who have
high technical skills. In fact, mastery of the arts and humanities is
just as closely correlated with high earnings, and, according to our
analysis, that will continue to be true. History, music, drawing, and
painting, and economics will give our students an edge just as surely as
math and science will.

-Tough Choices or Tough Times:

The report of the new Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, 2007

Music
is one way for young people to connect with themselves, but it is also a
bridge for connecting with others. Through music, we can introduce
children to the richness and diversity of the human family and to the
myriad rhythms of life.

-Daniel A. Carp, Eastman Kodak Company Chairman and CEO

Young
children who take music lessons show different brain development and
improved memory over the course of a year, compared to children who do
not receive musical training. Musically trained children performed
better in a memory test that is correlated with general intelligence
skills such as literacy, verbal memory, visiospatial processing,
mathematics and IQ.